Ready for the gentle turbulence?

Last Wednesday, I had my first experience of “walking in my MBA shoes”. The Boston Consulting Group, one of the most popular recruiters of INSEAD MBAs hosted a welcome reception for the admits of top schools for their forthcoming recruitment season.

At the height of the heat wave, it took me twice as long to get to BCG’s London office at Mayfair place. The building is impressive. BCG shares the building with Bain Capital and other prominent firms. As you would expect from the company, inside of the building matches the prestige of the brand name with all marble floors, immaculately clean reception, welcoming staff, and wide open space. I was kindly directed to the fifth floor and welcomed by BCG’s recruitment coordinator. Inside the office has a much more cozy look with cream carpets, sofas, and glass doors. The office space was surprisingly small, probably due to the consultants being away most of the time.

At the lounge, there were between 30 and 40 people, all with fancy BCG name tags. Unfortunately, my name was misspelled as usual, so I opted not to wear it. Half of the crowd was made of MBAs from INSEAD, Columbia, Kellogg, LBS and IESE. The other half were recent graduates from these schools now working for BCG. The event worked well altogether. Everyone was from a similar age group, very chatty and relaxed, sharing experiences and expectations. This is also the first time I got to meet some of the other admits which was very exciting for me. Most of the discussions was centered around getting ready for the MBA, finances, tips, lessons learnt, and some advice from the BCGs. I would have preferred to spend more time learning about the company, but I guess there will be plenty of time for that in the future during their campus visits.

One interesting fact I gathered during the event is that BCG will continue to expand this year. Apparently, they grew a stunning 40% last year alone in terms of number of people employed and they are set to continue on this path. Having said that, the competition is steep, only four of the seventy applicants from January 2006 class received offers for the London office last year!